A monitoring study for the Celle Ligure case: shore protection works and beach feeding

Marco Firpo*, Paolo Noce**

* University of Genova-DIPTERIS (I)
** Studio di Ingegneria Idraulica (I)

Abstract

The beach of Celle Ligure, as well as many other Liguria's beaches, showed in the last century a clear contraction trend that has been emphasised in the last years. This portion of coastline, included between P.ta Celle (westward) and P.ta dell'Olmo (eastward), spreads for 2000 m with a NE-SW trend and it can be subdivided into three sectors: the Centre beach, in front of the town, besides the little alluvial plain of the Ghiare Torrent, the Piani beach, that showed a great instability with a clear erosional trend, and an indented part, with some little beaches.
As it can be shown by the dynamic situation, the coastal drift conveys seaward the thin material, through the rip currents, whereas the long shore current carries toward NE (going over P.ta dell'Olmo) the coarser material; in order to face this trend and to stabilise and protect the Piani beach, a groyne has been realised near P.ta Bufò with beach feeding, foreseen over three years, of about 30.000 m3.
This kind of intervention, according to the guidelines of the Coastal Plan realised by the Regione Liguria, is proving to be very effective, being also an important defence to protect the road that crosses P.ta Bufò.